Members of the automotive value chain experience increasing activity around the Company Certificate Management (CCM) Use Case. Recently, OEMs and large automotive suppliers require commitments for collaboration for the Use Case with clearly defined timelines. Automotive key players require this to meet evolving regulations and handle the increasing complexity in certificate management.
When implemented the right way, CCM reduces effort, eliminates friction and creates a solid foundation for efficient partnerships. In the following you can read what the Use Case is about and how it can create real value.
What Is Company Certificate Management and how does it Create Real Value?
Suppliers awareness often is raised because of the customer request to join the Catena-X CCM use case until a certain deadline, e.g. “end of March”. Similar requests can be observed for other Catena-X Use Cases and frequently leave suppliers with open questions and uncertainty.
CCM (Company Certificate Management) refers to the structured handling of certificates that prove compliance with regulatory, quality and sustainability requirements.
In automotive business relations, these certificates are used in various contexts and on a daily basis. Suppliers are required to provide certificates to their OEMs for almost every tender or partnership, ensuring that all parties operate according to regulatory and contractual standards.
For many suppliers, this recent request does not land on a green field. It arrives in an environment already shaped by multiple customer portals with different requirements, individual processes per customer and considerable manual effort.
Certificates are uploaded time and again, expiration dates tracked in spreadsheets and coordination consumes valuable time often with limited transparency. With an increasing number of certificates, new interfaces for different purposes and varying validity terms of the certificates, the handling becomes even more complex and time-consuming.
The Catena-X Company Certificate Management Use Case addresses this challenge by enabling certificates to be
- described in standardized data formats (based on Catena-X Data Models and Standards),
- managed centrally in one, standardized and interoperable interface used for different Customers, and – once the certificates are uploaded – to be
- shared repeatedly andupdated automatically based on the current data.
Besides providing certificates to customers only, the interface can also be used to fetch data of own suppliers as well as automatically track the expiration and update of certificates.
A Starting Point for New Participants
For several suppliers, CCM is the first use case in Catena-X and it can be a good starting point if done well. Companies can use this use case to
- Get familiar with Catena-X principles and technologies in short time
- Build a first use case with a clearly defined scope, as well as a limited need for own development and implementation
- Streamline their Catena-X activities (e.g. form Catena-X competence centers or task forces)
- Define and evaluate their approach (e.g. make-or-buy), architectures and preferred solutions
Thanks to the interoperability and open-source principles of Catena-X there is a wide selection of certified solutions by different vendors which is compatible to the open-source reference implementations and the standards of Catena-X.
A Practical Solution: sovity Quintari Company Certificate Management
This is where sovity’s solution Quintari Company Certificate Management comes into play. It provides a centralized portal designed for both providing and receiving certificates — tailored to real operational needs.
Companies can:
- Upload certificates
- Share them with multiple selected partners
- Maintain a clear overview of all certificates and their status
- Monitor validity and expiration dates in one place
The result is a clean, efficient workflow that replaces repetitive manual tasks with clarity and control.
Company Certificate Management is part of the sovity Quintari Suite. Quintari can be equipped with various, interoperable Use Case modules which can be added on-demand to implement further use cases in shortest time. Further on, Quintari provides standardized interfaces for interoperability with 3rd party solutions for sovity Customers to have the broadest choice on their preferred solutions for each use case.
This allows for Catena-X participants to quickly connect to Catena-X, implement various use cases and unlock the value of Catena-X for their advantage.
Catena-X Makes Use Cases Simpler and Smarter
The CCM use case is one of many in Catena-X and leverages its scalable framework for collaboration. Many OEMs already rely on Catena-X as trusted data ecosystem for scalable data exchange.
This changes the game for suppliers: Instead of sharing data across multiple customer-specific portals, Use Cases such as Company Certificate Management become part of a shared, industry-wide infrastructure. The result is less duplication, more transparency and significantly reduced effort. This transforms compliance from an administrative obligation into a streamlined, future-ready process.
From Obligation to Opportunity
The current push for Company Certificate Management does not have to be painful. With Catena-X as the ecosystem and solutions like sovity Quintari Company Certificate Management, it becomes a useful enabler rather than a disruptive requirement.
The best solutions are not the ones that are the most loudly promoted — but the ones that simply work. Find out more in our Customer Success Stories with ElringKlinger, Eberspächer and Brose.
Want to learn more?
Join our Webinar to explore more about Company Certificate Management and what it means in practice for suppliers:
If you are interested in further reading first, you can also find more in our previous article on the background of the CCM use case.
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